Greater personalities for the Greater Good !

The U19 worldcup have almost come to an end. India have marched their way to the final, dominating every single opposition. Though the best competitors in the world i.e. Australia, skipped the tournament for security reasons, both Westindies and India have played really good cricket. If not they definitely wouldn't have reached the final.

            Irrespective of the result of the final, Rahul Dravid definitely will be proud of his boys. It’s heartwarming to see him going to the dressing room of the associate teams and instilling faith in them after they have been demolished on the cricket field. It’s a nature that we don’t see very often. But with Rahul Dravid, it shouldn’t surprise us.

Read: Australia pull out of under 19 world cup            

Read: A Dravid memory for the Canada boys to take back home

The term of current Indian team director ends with the T20 worldcup. Considering this in mind, there can’t be a better situation to appoint Rahul as coach of the Indian team. With a long home season of tests to come, there can’t be a better foil to the Indian test captain Virat Kohli. If Rahul accepts the offer, then it would be the best thing to happen for Indian cricket in the next decade. The calmness of Rahul will definitely do a greater good to the aggressive, in your face- Virat!

If at all Rahul believes he is not ready yet, then there is one other guy who can do similar good. Anil Kumble is the man for the job. These two people go unnoticed on most occasions. But the glorious moments of Indian cricket in the past decade belong to them. Anil captained the Indian team for a brief period of time which was filled with controversies, like the one in Sydney 2008. I can’t think of any other person who could have handled those situations better. Much like the saying “Horses for courses”, he was the perfect man for the situation. He doesn’t back off from sledges. But his replies were never found offensive. His attitude on and off the field is unmatchable.

Read: Anil Kumble interview after sydney test

Watch: Anil kumble interview after perth victory

India always had their bowlers performing well overseas in patches. But they faded away even more quickly than they arrived. The fact that Anil is the most successful Indian bowler over a consistent period of time in overseas conditions will definitely help. As they say, “a stronger bowling team always have a better chance of winning the test match than a stronger batting team”, I strongly believe "The Engineer" has a great deal up his sleeve to contribute to the team provided the offer was given and he accepts it.   

                           

      

Ravi Shastri and his team of support staff including Sanjay and Arun has done a great job so far. But I believe some credit must be given to Duncan Fletcher. He is definitely not as bad as the statistics show. At times you will have to look beyond the statistics and understand the context of the situation. He took over as the coach of the No. 1 team in the world. But it was a team that consisted of legends who were at the fag end of their careers. They failed and the team lost consistently overseas.

                         

          

But it was during the same period when the likes of Virat, Pujara, Rahane, Rohit came up to the stage. The rise of Virat over the years is staggering. But I firmly believe there is a greater contribution of Duncan in his rise. Even Virat has said that Duncan silently observes and comes to you only if you had something to be corrected.  During the New Zealand tour there is one such thing that he told virat after his struggle in first innings and he said that it immediately worked and he scored a century in the very next innings. There must be more of such untold stories about him.

You can ask Kevin Pietersen who turned to Duncan when he felt like things didn’t work.  He was the one who coached England to victory in arguably the greatest ashes test series of all time in 2005-06.

Read: Kevin Pietersen turns to Duncan Fletcher

                                               

Both captaincy and coaching is much like a relay race. If the baton is not passed perfectly, there will be initial struggle for the next person running. But Indian cricket is extremely blessed over the past fifteen years as the baton has been passed perfectly every single time. Now the time has come for the baton to be passed for the coach. You can ask about the captaincy baton which is yet to be passed in shorter formats. I believe MS Dhoni will do that perfectly, like he had done in the longest format. So let’s leave that aside for now.

Once the world T20 gets over, I will be keenly looking forward towards the selection of coach. There can’t be two better personalities for the job than Anil and Rahul. Hopefully if BCCI offers the job to either one of them and they accept it, then there can’t be better thing to happen for the Indian cricket team and its captain. Glory times are definitely ahead.  

The Dominance of Serenity

I believe every batsman in the world is rated on how he performs outside his comfort zone. And very rightly, that’s the way to do it. There’s a league of batsmen lighting up the stage at this moment of time. Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Joe Root and Kane Williamson along with David Warner are those in the top of the league.

Many would argue about the absence of Abraham Benjamin deVilliers in that list. Considering his age and the fact that he is already a modern day legend, I would like to keep him out of this. FAB FIVE as most people say about them now-a-days, they really are fabulous to watch.

But every one of them is yet to conquer a territory outside their comfort zone. Virat is yet to dominate on seaming tracks. For Warner it’s the rank turners and for Root it’s the bounce that is troubling them. I wouldn’t say Smith has conquered it all yet. At this moment of time he is in his own league, but there are still a lot of loopholes in his technique. The advantage for steve smith is that he can play proper cricketing shots. But he also has this tail-ender slogs to put the good balls away and that makes it difficult for a bowler. The other three mentioned above is more likely to conquer their weakness sooner or later.

Among these young players, it’s Kane Williamson who stands out. He can play swing, spin and bounce as well. I wouldn’t say there’s nothing left for him to conquer, but he barely struggles anywhere in the world. He made his debut in India and made a century when his team struggled. He has dominated in England, New Zealand and Australia as well. He is not like a Warner to score at a strike rate excess of 130 or to score 150 more scores in ODIs like Virat or Rohit Sharma in ODIs. But he’ll score those 70s and run a ball hundreds consistently.

The most admiring thing about him is that he scores without any fuss. He silently does the job for the team. His calmness has made a huge impact on his team as well. Last year, Brendon McCullum in an interview when asked about the kids of New Zealand wanting to become like him, he said he would want them to grow up and become like Kane Williamson.

I seriously believe there’s a similar player who’s not considered in this top five more often than not. Ajinkya Rahane is very much similar kind of player to Williamson. He has already excelled in test cricket all over the world. But to perform as good as Kane does in limited overs cricket, the team management has to give him a settled batting slot and a long run like the Black Caps did.

He had to warm the bench for 16 consecutive test matches before making debut. But once he got his chance, he has capitalized on it after his nightmarish debut. As far as ODIs are concerned, he has reached 2000 runs in the same number of innings as Dravid did. Rahul Dravid went on to score 10,000 ODI runs. If Rahane continues to bat at No. 4 for India in ODIs, I strongly believe he’s silently going to pile up a lot of runs for the country.

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 With all due respect, Rahul Dravid cannot be compared to anybody in the cricketing world. But purely based on the nature of personality on the field and kind of cricket they play, I would be more than happy to say that both Kane Williamson and Ajinkya Rahane could well possibly become the Rahul Dravid of this generation.

 

 

Their serene nature is something that make all the three go unnoticed. May be that’s their gifted talent or maybe they might have worked hard for it. In either way, it is that nature which is going to make these two youngsters unique, like it did in the case of Rahul Dravid.

There’s always going to be a lot of fuss around Kohli, Root, Smith and Warner. But for me, Kane Williamson and Ajinkya Rahane are the two players who are going to achieve a lot than what is expected from them. They are the ones to watch out for in the coming decade!